Foreword
 

This site is devoted to the description of a recently discovered group of 24 sheets of original drawings and “mangas” made by Hokusai and his students.  Almost all of these works are the first preparatory sketches or engraving size studies made for illustrations that would appear in popular novels between 1807 and 1815.

This study involved lengthy investigation. In fact, in-depth research of ukiyo-e is often rendered difficult by a lack of contemporary written information and sometimes even of original documents. For example, it would seem that none of Utamaro’s or Harunobu’s drawings have survived to the present. As concerns Hokusai, before the discovery of these 24 sheets, only 10 preparatory drawings by the artist and dating from before 17881 were known, and only a few dozen dating from after 18282.  Those from before 1788 date from his apprenticeship and are permeated by an academic approach that makes it difficult to recognise Hokusai’s characteristic strokes. Those dating from after 1828 are from the latter part of his life and bear the traces of age and even illness. None of the drawings of these two groups is either comparable or even really similar to those of 1807-1815, a period of both creative liberty and physical mastery. Thus, when studying these drawings it was necessary to bow to the evidence that even if they really did come from Hokusai’s most accomplished period, because they were not catalogued anywhere and did not resemble those that were already known, none of the traditional approaches could be applied to them.

In order to draw their story from them in spite of their non-standard appearance, the only possible solution was to confront them with the only available witnesses: the prints for which they had been made, Hokusai’s paintings from the same period, and the other drawings of the group. For example, “comparing the drawings”, which at first sight could seem trifling, in fact turned out to be highly valuable. The procedural repetitions observed in one drawing after another collected to form a pattern of systematically repetitive, distinctive features in the drawing technique. They were as many clues to help understand the general rules of Hokusai’s working method. In the same way, but “au contraire”, exceptions are never gratuitous, and provide precious information concerning the limitations of the rule, or custom. Luckily this group of drawings was of sufficient consequence to provide numerous examples of almost all situations that can occur in a studio in the course of the creation of drawings to be used as book illustrations. Ultimately it was this abundance of different cases that enabled in-depth research based on accurate observation, comparison and analysis to be successfully completed.

The research used three main approaches:
- Observation of the differences with the print.
This phase concentrated on discovering the stages of what could be called “the making of an original ukiyo-e drawing”, and on following them one by one. As these drawings were all preparatory works for illustrations published in books, comparing them with the print for which they had been made reveals an overall view of the preparatory work, the finished work and, obviously, the evolution of the work from one stage to the other. By repeating this comparison for each drawing it is possible to obtain an excellent insight into Hokusai’s working method at the time.
It should be borne in mind that while numerous differences between the drawing and the print are readily apparent to the naked eye, many others can only be observed if the drawing is placed directly on the print. Only with this method can the full range of improvements that were made over the progress of the project be observed.
- An in-depth study of line and stroke.
This approach turned out to be fundamental on two levels: for identification of the author of the drawing and for the understanding of his working method, in which it is one of the most essential elements.
As concerns identifying the author, significant enlargement was used in the more difficult cases.
As concerns the working method, these drawings show us that, in order to prepare prints exclusively in a ukiyo-e style, Hokusai used all the different line and stroke styles at his disposal. Once it had been understood that he had naturally used the stroke and line style that was best suited to his work, and that as the project progresses it continues more closely to resemble that which it is to become, namely the print, looking at the line style or the stroke enables the viewer to follow Hokusai’s intentions during his work.
 - Inquiry into  “instructions for the next drawing”.
An unknown feature before the discovery of these drawings, they constitute one of the major discoveries made in the course of this research. It all began when strange peculiarities that repeated in one drawing after another were remarked. The most common was the regularity with which the decoration of numerous items of clothing is carefully indicated, but only once or twice.  Another good example is the treatment of the clumps of pine needles: generally, a very few individual clumps are drawn needle by needle with a decisive stroke, while the other clumps are merely indicated by means of an evasive circle.

Other examples can be found in herbs and grasses, garden plants, bouquets of flowers, i.e. in the repetitive decorative work. All these “anomalies” are in fact instructions for the next stage of this preparatory drawing Their purpose is simple – they indicate what to keep, what to rework on the next stage of this drawing while remaining as clear as possible. Their code is even simpler: the more certain the stroke and the blacker the ink, the more the line should be kept; the swifter and lighter in ink colour, the more it will need to be reworked. In this study, this code is referred to as “shorthand”.

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 1, 2, Cf. “Other Drawings”.